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Apple allows Twitterers to f**k the iPhone

App offers unexpurgated obscenity

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Apple has decided that Twitterers will henceforth be able to access profanity via the iPhones and iPod touch, Cnet reports.

The company intially declined to offer application Tweetie 1.3 in its App Store because it allows access to "Twitter Trends", which excitingly "displays the most frequent topics or words on Twitter at any given moment".

Shockingly, this sometimes coughs up swear words, "including a particular four-letter word that begins with the letter F", as Cnet delicately puts it.

Well, the rules state that apps "must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive, or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple's reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod Touch users".

Other apps to fall foul of the Apple censor have included one which offers South Park clips, rejected for "potentially offensive" content, the splendid iBoobs, and comic Murderdrome - the latter in "a clear case of nanny-vendor censorship", as we put it at the time.

However, it's now decreed that Tweetie 1.3 can be punted on its store, prompting developer Loren Brichter to enthuse: "Great news! 1.3 has now been approved! Alright Apple!"

Brichter diplomatically suggested that rather that out-and-out censorship, the temporary ban may have been a "goof" on Apple's part. The obscenitymonger concluded: "The App Store is still very young, they're working out the kinks." ®